Day 14 - Hornillos del Camino to Castrojeriz Inglesia Santa Maria

We leave Hornillos on a bright sunny morning after a great evening. We had done our usual ablutions and went to the only bar/restaurant. It was packed and a dozen people waiting for a table. Plan B then, back to the village shop for some supplies.

Our hostel had a fully equipped kitchen. So Tony did a tomato and cucumber salad and I did pasta with tomato and mushroom sauce sprinkled with Manchego cheese and the usual bottle of €3 wine. When we brought our supplies from the village shop they had run out of bread. The nice lady serving said "no problem, I will ring my brother and he will bring you some", 10 minutes later fresh bread arrived.

The best meal of the Camino (well it had to be, didn't it).

Although Tony records he used to have winkles from the winkle van on a Sunday for tea with shaved truffles from the woods, I will need Manley, or one of the family, to verify this.

We walk across a high Plateau (Meseta) dotted with wind farms and descend down into Hontanas.

Another classic pilgrim village in the folds of the Meseta.

The solid parish church (14th century) dominates the tiny village square and contributes to the peace and tranquility of this isolated place.

We fill our water bottles in the spring water fountain, which is refreshingly cool.

Back on the dusty track to San Anton.

The only thing in San Antonio is the derelict convent “Convento de San Anton", 14th Century.

The tradition was that bread was left in the alcoves for passing pilgrims. Not much chance of that these days!

We stop on the way out of San Anton to rest our feet and have a snack with 3 really nice old birds from Australia. They laughed when I named them the calendar girls.

We approach our destination for today, Castrojeriz Inglesia Santa Maria.

A delightfully sleepy town that apparently comes to life during the garlic festival in July. A bit smelly though I would imagine.

This historic fortified town with Roman and Visigothic remains has had a more active past, the scene of much fighting. It also has no less than 8 pilgrim hospitals (they must have been a pretty sick lot back then).

The castle on the hill was first erected in the 9th century.

It is very imposing as we walk in to town.

Our stop over for tonight is a bit more up market than usual, “Hotel Puerto del Monte ” with an in-house bar and restaurant, so the chef has the night off.

Really starting to unwind now and feeling more relaxed now than I can ever remember and looking forward to our next destination.

Today the silence was only disturbed by the constant songs from the skylarks that are ever present over the endless fields of oats and barley, oh and Tony whomping on about this shin splints, bless him.

Oh just heard that the day they closed the Camino across the Pyrenees after our first day, a lady ignored the warnings and died.

Tomorrow our destination is Fromista, a 26km walk on the flat, some of the way following the Canal de Castilla.